Bob Lenz and John Larmer

When imagining project-based learning (PBL), people often picture teams of students working smoothly and productively, with a high degree of autonomy, as people do in a high-functioning workplace. This is a worthy goal, and it’s possible to achieve with older students, given enough time to build their skills in a culture that emphasizes collaboration and high-quality PBL. But it sets a very high standard for student agency. Most projects cannot be expected to match this ideal.

This stereotype—along with the belief that PBL must be entirely driven by student choice—reflects a misunderstanding about the role the teacher plays in developing agency in project-based learning. In our work with teachers and schools, we’ve seen that agency is built over time, with teachers taking an active role. Rather than throwing students into the deep end of the pool, we recommend teachers start them in the shallow end, designing appropriate challenges and providing scaffolding that prepares students to swim on their own.

Here are four key ways teachers can build agency and support students as they take on collaborative, creative projects:

1. DESIGN PROJECTS THAT MAKE AN IMPACT ON THE SCHOOL, COMMUNITY, OR WIDER WORLD.

One of main criteria for good project-based learning is authenticity. Projects can be authentic in several ways and are especially powerful when students see real-world results of their work. These results could be seen on the school grounds—as in a campus environmental project for young students— or on fellow students struggling with some challenge, such as when 5th graders at an elementary school in South Philadelphia wrote and published a book of poetry to help peers coping with depression. High school students in San Antonio, Texas, who partook in a project to explore and share their knowledge on immigration saw that they could take action locally on a significant national issue.

For even greater student agency and meaningfulness, teachers can guide students to identify the real-world problems that students most want to tackle, then co-design a project with them that addresses those problems.

2. USE STUDENT QUESTIONS TO GUIDE INQUIRY.

Another key practice in project-based learning is generating student questions about the topic at hand, which then guide the inquiry process. Generating questions

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NEW VOICES

Vernita Mayfield hails originally from Los Angeles, California, where she began her career teaching elementary school. As a teacher, Mayfield found her first love serving and supporting students who have been historically marginalized. Since then, she has continued to do so through numerous positions of service, including secondary school principal, researcher and lecturer, and educational consultant at state and national levels. In 2012, she founded Leadervation Learning to support organizations seeking to build leadership capacity, particularly in marginalized communities. The company evolved into a vehicle supporting leaders at all levels to understand and dismantle inequitable systems and organizations by building the cultural competency of staff.